I believe the great CEOs understand both business success and personal success. My higher purpose is to disseminate CEO wisdom to help elevate business, the economy and society. My platforms are: host of the nationally syndicated Am/Fm radio show The CEO Show with Robert Reiss, and host of the CEO TV Show. We also produce The CEO Forum magazine, which is received exclusively by the top 10,000 CEOs in America. I recently co-authored, “The Transformative CEO” which was published by McGraw-Hill in 2012. One of my passions is sharing insights by giving keynote speeches on the topic, “What we can learn from America’s top CEOs”.

The NY Jets and Tim Tebow Can Win Now: A Lesson from Twinkies!

The NY Jets football team is in free fall. Excuses litter the media. Even Tim Tebow, who barely plays, is being blamed. But really, when clearing the distractions, it’s just the age-old story of the emperor’s new clothes … the real problem is obvious to the fan’s practical eye, as is the solution.

For context, imagine a business that has a blockbuster product that it never brings to market and instead spends its energy communicating how great the poor-performing CEO really is; since the analysts are buying this story of the ‘well-dressed’ emperor, the business doesn’t bother listening to its customers. Now that’s a company to sell short! This is the situation the Jets are in.

Interestingly, a similar story is reinforced by this week’s announcement of Hostess’ bankruptcy. Hostess’ real failure was actually a lack of innovation and misdirecting its focus on internal issues instead of its customers. And if innovating a Twinkie seems impossible, just tear a page from Oreo’s playbook on product innovation and engaging customers through social media, resulting in Oreo’s winning the division of snack foods.

So can the Jets learn from business and turnaround this season and perhaps even make the playoffs? Remember 2010. It is still possible. Here’s the key …

An unpredictable offense is football’s blockbuster product. So much of football success is catching the opponent off guard to make big plays — being unpredictable. The Jets started the season with the unprecedented value proposition of a Sanchez & Tebow combination that mixes styles, lefty & righty, and makes the Jets practically impossible to completely prepare for. Just like the two digits of the binary system – 0 and 1 – create endless digital options, a combination of Sanchez & Tebow create endless play options. This unpredictable dual-quarterback option, if executed flawlessly, could make the Jets the toughest team to defend in the NFL. But it takes deep thought, football expertise, and a lot of homework to create a whole set of new types of football plays for this new ‘product’ that never existed.

Focus on the customers, not on protecting the CEO. Fans just want wins. The fans are the Jets’ customers. Fans do not want to hear reasons. Fans do not want to hear why their “CEO” Sanchez is so great and needs to be the leader. The truth is fans just want results. I’ve heard every reason about Tebow – especially from the media – “Tebow is different”, “he’s not a real quarterback” etc. But regarding Tebow and the emperor’s clothing, the naked truth is that Tebow has barely played. Because Tebow hasn’t even played one set of downs throughout nine games, Tebow naysayers are like the boss who criticizes an executive, but never gives him a project or any chance to get results.

So what do we know about Tebow? Regardless of any reason or skill set, he does one thing – he wins. The adage “All he does is win” fits perfectly with Tebow. And remember, this is not hard; fans want wins. Imagine if Apple didn’t bring back Steve Jobs in 1996. The good news is that the Jets do have their Steve Jobs waiting patiently on the sideline and ready to contribute.

The Jets must either:

Play Tebow and Sanchez together for the entire game, developing numerous unpredictable plays for Sanchez and Tebow so the defense cannot prepare.

If it’s too hard to figure this unpredictable model, then just give Tebow a real chance to see what he can do. Give him a drive. Give him a quarter. Give Tebow a game. Forget if he’s not your ‘standard quarterback’ just give Tebow one instruction … “Win”.

The Jets today remind me of Marvel Entertainment of 1999. It was recovering from bankruptcy and stock was just 96 cents a share. And they only had $3 million of reserve capital and IP of about 7,000 mostly dormant characters. Marvel had just one option, to take their only available key asset and give it a try. So they used key assets who had been standing on the sidelines for decades: Spiderman and Hulk – and made motion pictures. The result was success that drove dramatic growth to the point where Marvel completely turned around their franchise and in fact sold a decade later to Disney for $54 a share.

In business as in sports, creating something new is not the risk; the risk is continuing to do over and again what has failed. So whether we learn from Marvel, Apple or Hostess, the Jets have their opportunity for a great business franchise turnaround. Remember, just a year ago Tim Tebow took over a Broncos team that was 1 – 4 and lead them to the playoffs. The Jets can do the same.

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Well said and I agree!! Now can you please send this article to the powers that be at the New York Jets organization so maybe if they see this in print they will realize what the fans are saying. Start Tebow until you do you cannot say he can’t win games and you don’t know if he has improved his throwing motion. His past record speaks for itself!!! Again thank you for the article.

Well said. The Jets continue to disappoint with the losses and lack of true leadership by Rex and Sanchez. I am Losing interest…fast. If NOW is not Tebow Time, then when? Huh, Coach? We tired early of the circus Rex created with the media. (Rex could have kept the media away from TT). It is time for a proven winner and a proven leader at QB. Give us Tebow or give us a new coach…